For the Holidays
by lilmm
Summary: The boys come home for Christmas. Part of my Nest verse.
1. Christmas 2012

**I really wish there was a Hudmel character option on here...**

**MamaCatTo3 , xSlythStratasfaction, and paddyofurniture all asked for a Christmas-based fic set in the future and showing a bit of how Susan changes as she gets older, so I came up with this. Each chapter is a snippet from a different year the boys are in college and in a different person's POV.**

**I don't own Glee.**

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><p>Kurt grabbed Blaine's hand and pulled him along the terminal, increasing speed the closer he got to the airport's meeting point.<p>

"Shouldn't we wait for Finn and Rachel?" Blaine asked, trying not to smile too broadly at his boyfriend's giddiness.

"I saw them go into the same bathroom, honey. They're probably not going to come out until Rachel's achieved her second orgasm."

"Kurt, I doubt they're actually having sex in the bathroom. For one thing I'm not sure they'd be able to get away with it with so many people going in and out all the time."

"I've heard stories. Stories that have scarred me for life. Oh! I think I see them!"

Kurt let go of Blaine's hand to wave broadly at the cluster of people waiting to pick up loved ones and business contacts. Blaine scanned the crowd eagerly and caught sight of Rachel's dads before a worn baseball cap caught his attention.

"Dad!" Kurt ran and practically threw himself into Burt's arms, dropping his carry-on suitcase halfway there. Blaine picked it up and rolled it along with his own at a more sedate pace, grinning at Carole and making a face at SuLee who decided to almost immediately ignore him.

"How was your flight, sweetie?" Carole asked, giving him a one-armed hug.

"It was fine. I think I slept through most of it. I'm actually kind of surprised Kurt didn't poke me for getting drool on his sweater."

Carole laughed, stroking his hair fondly. "Well, that's what happens when you work yourself too hard. We'll make sure you get plenty of sleep over break and maybe I can fatten you boys up a bit. You and Kurt are both looking far too thin."

Blaine rolled his eyes. "Yes, Mom."

Carole teared up the way he'd sort of hoped she would. He still felt a little awkward including himself as a part of their family, but with Carole at least he thought he could get used to such familiarity. She had basically taken over that role in his life, after all.

Blaine smiled at her and quickly turned his attention to the baby. She looked even bigger in person than she had in the last round of pictures Carole sent out. He couldn't believe how much he'd missed.

"Hey there, baby girl. Have you been good for Mom and Dad?" SuLee looked at him and then pointedly turned her head away again. Carole laughed. "What, have I been gone too long? Do you not love me anymore, SuLee?"

SuLee ignored him for a few more moments, then turned her head back around and flailed her arms in his direction. "Ba!"

"Do you want to hold her?" Carole smiled softly, already shifting the baby's weight in her arms. Blaine reached out excitedly and buried his nose in her hair. She still smelled the same way she did the last time he held her back in August, though from the feel of her diaper she might need to be changed before they left the airport.

Blaine pulled back in surprise when SuLee bopped him on the head with her fist.

"Ba!"

"Well, hello to you too," he grinned.

"I don't suppose you know where my son is," Carole asked, a gentle smile still on her face.

Blaine turned around, shocked. Finn and Rachel still hadn't caught up. Maybe Kurt was right about what they were doing in the bathroom.

"They were right behind us," he hedged.

"Until they took a detour," Kurt muttered beside him. Blaine hadn't even seen him move. "I'm sure he and Rachel will be along shortly," he said at a more normal volume. "You're looking wonderful, Carole."

"Thank you honey," Carole hugged him. "New York must agree with you. I don't think I've ever seen you look so happy, and that's saying something," she said, winking at Blaine.

"Well, I always was a New Yorker at heart," Kurt said lightly. Burt smiled at him fondly the clapped Blaine on the shoulder.

"You doing all right, kid?" Blaine felt his heart swell giddily.

"I'm great."

"And what about you, Brat?" Kurt asked, running his fingers through SuLee's wispy hair and somehow making it appear neater than before. "Did you miss us while we were gone?"

SuLee blew a spit bubble and whacked the side of Blaine's neck with a hand.

"She's trying to figure out how to walk already," Burt said proudly, beaming at the baby. "Keeps falling on her butt every time, but she's determined to do it. She might even beat you out at reaching her first steps," he elbowed Kurt lightly and Kurt rolled his eyes, catching her as she attempted to squirm out of Blaine's arms.

"She won't beat me for fabulousness, so I'm not too worried."

"Yeah. You boys do all right on your finals?"

"I got an A in everything except my Theater Dance class," Kurt chirped. "I swear, the professor was biased against me from the start."

Blaine actually suspected his professor had a crush on him and was devastated to learn that he had a boyfriend.

"What about you, Blaine? You manage to pull off straight A's again?" Burt had been noticeably impressed when he'd caught a glimpse of Blaine's transcripts back when he helped him transfer out of Dalton.

"I don't know about straight A's, but I think I'm fairly close. I need to go online and check when we get home. My phone's dead and for some reason NYU's server won't let me access it from Kurt's phone."

"I thought they had all that gadgety stuff figured out by now. Ah!" Burt exclaimed, looking over Blaine's shoulder. "There's the prodigal son. Did you get lost on your way over here, Finn?"

Finn shifted guiltily and almost stopped himself from looking at Rachel. Blaine really wished he didn't know why Finn's cheeks were flushed like that.

"Hey, guys. Um. Rachel wanted some water before we left, so we stopped to get some."

"And I'm sure Rachel's upcoming cruise with her dads had nothing at all to do with the two of you disappearing," Carole said lightly, pulling him into a hug tight enough that Blaine thought he heard joints crack. "I missed you, honey."

"Missed you too, Mom."

Burt clapped Finn on the shoulder as he pulled out of Carole's embrace. "What do you say we get you boys' bags and head home? Carole's cooked a little of everybody's favorites and I'm looking forward to letting loose for one night and reconnecting with my boys."

"One beer," Kurt chided, handing SuLee back to Carole while Finn made faces at the baby and gave her an awkward high five.

"I haven't had any alcohol in weeks. A couple of beers tonight won't kill me."

"Make that one beer and no, it won't."

"Hey, just who's the father here?" Burt asked, mock punching Kurt in the shoulder before throwing an arm around his neck and squeezing him closer. Blaine smiled at Kurt's wail about his hair.

It felt good to be home.

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><p><strong>Thoughts?<strong>


	2. Christmas 2013

**Is it bad that Christmas is two days away and I haven't printed off presents for three of the closest people in my life yet (and yes, I'm giving them stories I've mostly already written. I'm poor. Shut up.)?**

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><p>Finn stomped up to his room and audibly threw himself onto his bed before the rest of the family had even fully entered the house.<p>

"Should I go talk to him now or wait a bit?" Carole asked, desperate to offer motherly support but not wanting to step on any toes. Finn was technically an adult now.

"You might be able to get through to him in a way Kurt and I haven't," Blaine shrugged sympathetically.

"Typical Rachel, though," Kurt scowled, setting two of his suitcases by the stairs to take up later. "Of course she'd flaunt her new boyfriend in Finn's face just before Christmas. Cow."

"Be nice," Burt chided, setting a squirming Susie down so she could start her favorite game of toy parade and show off to Kurt and Blaine. "I thought you guys were friends despite her and Finn's eternal on-off relationship status."

"Oh, it's definitely off now," Kurt said, collapsing on the couch. "Finn's been sleeping on our couch for the past month and a half while her highness has been prancing around with her new beau who is, might I add, everything Finn thinks he's not."

Carole bit her lip and glanced up at the ceiling.

"Really? Did Finn tell you that?" Blaine asked, easing himself onto the floor and accepting a plush doll Susan handed him.

"Please, he's been jealous of the guy since the first time he met him. Ryan of the classically trained voice – of course Finn was jealous."

"I thought you hated Ryan's voice."

"Oh, I do. His style of singing is absolutely atrocious. I've never heard a man sing with so much vibrato. It sets my teeth on edge just thinking about it. Doesn't mean Finn's not jealous of it though."

"So you two have met this new guy," Carole asked with another anxious glance upstairs before sighing and bending to prevent the mess her daughter was making from getting any worse.

Blaine blushed as Kurt raised an eyebrow at him. "Um, I actually introduced them." Burt leveled a look at him that was so similar to one of Kurt's that Carole might have laughed if the situation weren't so serious. "Ryan was in my Aural Comprehension class last year and we got on well enough that I invited him to our end of the year party in May. He and Rachel hit it off, but I thought they were just friends until I saw her hanging off him the other day."

"Honey, your naïveté is charming, but that's just the sort of attitude that got you in trouble with Sebastian last semester," Kurt said in that flirty patronizing voice he sometimes used with Blaine. Burt shifted uncomfortably and wandered toward the kitchen.

Carole wondered how he would react when Kurt inevitably insisted that Blaine sleep in his old room with him. They were living together, after all, and Carole was fairly certain they had packed together as well. There was one less suitcase sitting by the stairs than there had been last year when they were both living on their respective campuses and too afraid to buck Burt's rules to try bed-hopping.

"Sebastian's just a friend," Blaine insisted. Carole knew he thought as much from some of their phone conversations this past year, but after her separate conversations with Kurt she had to agree with her stepson's opinion. Not that she planned on telling Blaine that any time soon. "He flirts with everybody."

"He's never flirted with me," Kurt pouted. "Though I wouldn't put it past him if he thought I might be open to a threesome."

Burt dropped something out of the fridge and Carole moved in that direction to tease him about Kurt not being a little boy anymore. Of course that still wouldn't stop either of them from worrying about him making his way in the city. Or any of the boys, really.

Kurt and Blaine continued to bicker amiably as she left, each of them paying enough attention to Susie as they talked to let the little girl think she had them wrapped completely around her finger. Which, of course, she did. Her charming green eyes could get her almost anything and she knew it. Carole cringed to think how Burt would handle the time when boys other than her brothers began to pay attention to her.

Carole rounded the corner into the kitchen and Burt greeted her with a grimace.

"Is it wrong to miss the days when Kurt was afraid of sex?"

"Honey, they're sharing a one-bedroom apartment."

"I can still pretend they've split it up like platonic roommates. I've seen some of the clever things people do in those home design shows you and Kurt like to watch."

Carole smiled at him but forgot what she was going to say when "I Wanna Know What Love Is" started drifting down the staircase.

"Not again!" Kurt groaned from the living room.

Burt raised an eyebrow. "I'm guessing he's done this before."

"You talked to him alone for a bit at the airport, what do you think we should do?" Carole desperately wanted to go upstairs.

"I think we shouldn't make a big deal about it," Burt said, crossing his arms and leaning against the counter. "But I also think he wouldn't be averse to one of his mom's hugs either."

Carole closed her eyes and sighed out a laugh. Burt knew her too well at this point.

Taking the time to arm herself with two mugs of hot cocoa, Carole slowly ascended the stairs and shouldered her way into Finn's room. He hadn't closed the door, so he must have been waiting for her to come to him. She felt guilty for waiting so long.

"Hey, honey," Carole said just loud enough to be heard over the sax in Wham!'s "Careless Whisper". He really did have such an amusingly dated taste in music. She carefully sat on the edge of his bed and elbowed him gently in the side. "I brought you some of my special cocoa."

Finn pulled his head out of his pillow. "I'm not a child."

"I know, but cocoa makes everything better. I drank gallons of it when your dad died."

"Really?" he asked, turning enough to face her.

"Well, not right away," she amended. "It was summer when he actually died, but once the weather started to turn colder I did." She didn't mention the copious amounts of coconut rum she usually spiked it with, but the principle was the same. Chocolate made everything better.

"And it really helped?" Finn looked like such a child when he said that.

"For a while, until I could move on to other things."

Finn sat up skeptically and accepted his mug, smiling dimly when he saw she added his usual seven marshmallows for good luck.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

Finn shrugged. "What's there to talk about? My girlfriend left me for someone smarter, handsomer and more talented than me. I suck."

"You don't suck," Carole scolded. "You're just… unlucky in love. But someday you'll meet a girl who'll be worthy of you and treat you right and all of this will just be a-a learning curve of sorts."

Finn snorted. "I'm an idiot. I followed her out to New York cause I didn't know what else to do with my life and now I'm stuck sleeping on Kurt and Blaine's pokey pull-out couch. I can't even stretch out on it properly. And I'm terrified I'm gonna hear something," he shuddered.

"Do you want to come back home, go to school here somewhere? Burt would love to have you back at the garage." Finn looked thoughtful. "It's an option. But only if that's what _you _want to do. Last summer you were saying you loved the city and couldn't believe you ever questioned moving there."

"Last summer Rachel was still my girlfriend."

"Hey, stop that. The sun does not rise and set with Rachel Berry, no matter what she might think to the contrary. I'm asking you to think about what you want to do."

Finn pouted into his cocoa for a while and Carole wondered if she should leave him alone to think things over. Burt was all set to take the kids out Christmas tree shopping together later and she wanted to make sure everybody had eaten something before they left the house. Before she could even mention it, however, Susan toddled in through the open door and thrust her favorite teddy bear in Finn's direction.

"Finny."

"Hey, baby girl," he said gently. "Is that for me?"

Susie thrust it at him again. "Finny."

Finn smiled and took it from her, then reached down and scooped her up one-handed, burying his nose in her hair when she squealed. And he used to say she smelled bad.

"You're my best girl, right, Susie Q?"

"Yes!"

Carole patted his knee and stood up. "We saved Christmas tree shopping until you boys came home. Burt was planning to go later tonight if you're up for it."

"Okay. We'll be down in a minute, won't we, Leeloo Monster?"

"Yes!"

Carole caught his eye and smiled. "Whatever you decide, honey, we'll support you."

Finn nodded seriously and corrected his grip on Susie as she flopped gracelessly to one side. "I'll think about it."

"Yes!" Susie cheered, flailing her arms and accidently whacking Finn in the chest. He smiled down at her.

Carole drank in the sight of her babies getting along before she left the room. She just hoped everything would turn out all right.

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><p><strong>Thoughts?<strong>


	3. Christmas 2014

**If I were being really anal about posting this approximately when it "happened" I'd post this chapter closer to six o'clock tonight my time, but as I have readers from all over the world (and I still can't quite get over how cool that is) being that anal is just kind of silly. Besides, there's no way in hell I'm waking up any earlier than I have to tomorrow to get the Christmas morning chapter up.**

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><p>"You doin' all right, buddy?" Burt asked when he and Kurt finally managed to get some alone time Christmas Eve. The boy had been uncharacteristically silent ever since he and Finn got off the plane. Burt worried that Kurt was taking Blaine's year abroad in Italy even harder than he let on.<p>

"I'm fine, Dad," Kurt said dully, chopping up ingredients for some sauce he planned on serving with dinner that night. At least that's what Burt thought he said he was doing.

"You sure about that? Cause so far this week I've heard all about how hot Finn's new crush is, but I haven't heard much from you except for some rant about your English teacher."

Kurt sighed. "I'm fine, Dad, I just don't have a lot to talk about."

"You and Blaine have a fight or something?"

"It's a little hard to fight when he's not here. We only talk for maybe a total of an hour or two a day when we call to wish each other goodnight. And that's only if he doesn't have some concert to go to for class or if I don't have rehearsal or a study group or a big test early the next morning or something. The six hour time difference sucks."

Burt nodded to himself. Kurt had always been high maintenance; it had to be killing him to have no one but himself to help maintain him, especially after he'd gotten used to Blaine being so good about it all these years.

"You know it's only a few more months until he comes back, right?"

Kurt sighed and carefully put the knife down on the cutting board.

"It doesn't matter that it's only a few more months. He's not here. And everybody keeps telling me that we should have broken up before he left because he's not getting the full year abroad experience if he's shackled to me back home," he sniffed.

"Hey, I know it's tough, but don't you dare start listening to other people telling you to break up. You want to do it, fine, but not because other people are telling you to."

Kurt smiled dimly, sniffling as he put a pot on the stove to simmer. "I made the mistake of talking to Rachel about it a little while ago and she tried to convince me he's cheating on me even though I know he'd never do that. She's just projecting her own drama onto me," he said, angrily brushing tears from his face. Burt hated seeing his son like this.

"But I just – I miss him so much, Dad. We used to sit in coffee shops and talk about stupid celebrity gossip or the latest Vogue just because we could. We can't do that with him across an ocean. We tried once over Skype and it just went so wrong…

"But the worst isn't even missing talking to him properly. I miss falling asleep curled around his warmth while we cuddle on the couch, and I miss his kisses, and fighting off his stupid cold feet in the morning. And I just… I feel so lonely, dad."

Burt's heart broke as he looked at the pain on his son's face. He remembered feeling that loss after Elizabeth died, that ache of remembering something he could never have again. He thought about waking up with her hair in his mouth because she'd somehow managed to lie on top of him in the night and how much he missed it for months after she was gone. He still missed the annoying songs she'd tap out with her fingernails when she was on the phone and the way she'd hum when she was thinking.

He'd never get to have any of that with her again, but Kurt could with Blaine. If he was patient.

Kurt sighed and ripped a paper towel from the roll on the counter, carefully folding it into a small rectangle and wetting it under the tap before dabbing it across his eyes to cool the redness on his face. It was something his mother had taught him.

"It's almost six," Kurt said, carefully trying to rein in the tears in his voice. "Blaine's supposed to be calling on Skype to open our presents together."

"Yeah, Carole and Susan have been going on about it for a while. It's important that we have something of a family Christmas together even if we couldn't afford to fly him out here."

"I know you tried, Dad. It's not your fault plane tickets from Italy to Ohio are too expensive."

Burt clapped him on the shoulder before changing his mind and pulling him into a hug. He wasn't terribly good at this touchy-feely stuff, but he'd finally gotten to the point that he knew how to give a hug when it was needed.

Echoes of the Skype song drifted in from Kurt's open laptop in the living room and Burt heard Susie scream and stampede in from somewhere on the other side of the house. Kurt quickly strode into the living room and plucked the computer from the coffee table before Susie could try to clumsily accept the call. She wailed in protest.

"Suz, come here. Help me separate out the presents," Burt called.

"But it's Baaaaine!" She still hadn't figured out how to pronounce his name properly even though she claimed he was her favorite person in the whole world. Burt wasn't jealous. Lately Santa had been giving the kid a run for his money on that one, and a couple of months ago it had been Dora the Explorer. He'd get his turn eventually.

"Yes, and Kurt gets first dibs on him. Come here."

She pouted but finally stomped over as Finn and Carole walked into the room. Finn was playing some sort of game on his phone and almost walked into the couch before his mom unconsciously corrected him with a hand on his shoulder. Burt shook his head and helped Susan read the gift tags.

"It's beautiful," Blaine was saying, his voice slightly distorted through the laptop. "I didn't even think it was going to snow this year, the weather's been so warm, but there's just enough snow to dust the rooftops and things. It shows off all the architectural details so wonderfully. There's even a dusting on the dome of the Basilica."

"That sounds amazing," Kurt said wistfully. Burt saw Carole slip an arm around him to rub his back where they sat together on the couch.

Eventually the presents were all doled out and the corner of a slightly beat up Fed Ex box appeared in the corner of the laptop screen in front of Blaine. Burt was glad their presents to him had all arrived on time.

"Me first! Me first!" Susie cried, plucking the biggest present from her stack and looking at Burt and Carole hopefully.

"One present and then Blaine gets to go," Carole said firmly. Susie looked like she couldn't decide whether to pout about that or not.

"She can open all her presents first, I don't mind," Blaine said.

"Dude, it's actually Christmas there, right? How are you so patient?" Finn asked, toying with the corner of a gift Burt didn't remember picking out from under the tree. Maybe his girl had given it to him and forbidden him from opening it early. If that was actually the case, Burt thought it was kind of cute.

"I've had these boxes in my room for a week, I can wait a few more minutes," he grinned.

Kurt didn't say anything, but Burt noticed him eyeing the screen lovingly.

Susan grew bored and started ripping the wrapping paper off her box as slowly as possible in one continuous tear. Burt finally reached over and ripped it off quickly from the opposite side.

"Daad!"

"Well, what is it? I'm anxious to see!"

Carole grinned and winked at him. Susie's eyes got big and she gasped loudly.

"It's Merwida!"

It was actually a costume set of the character, Merida, complete with a child's sized bow and arrow and wild red wig, which Suzie snatched out of the box and immediately attempted to put on her head. It fell off.

"If you're going to wear a wig you need to at least do it correctly," Kurt sighed, kneeling down to help her gear up. The dress part of the costume was at least two sizes too big, but Susan was ecstatic, pretending to aim the bow at everything in the room.

"You're holding your bow backwards, SuLee," Blaine laughed. Susie corrected herself and aimed it at the computer screen.

"Now you!" she said. Maybe they hadn't needed to get her all those other gifts after all.

Blaine chuckled and threw up his hands. "If milady insists."

Burt caught Carole's eye as Blaine opened the two boxes in front of him, one significantly larger with the gifts the boys had shipped from New York and a smaller one covered in crayon that Burt and Carole had expedited last week.

Blaine made the appropriate noises over all the presents he received, sending a dopey look at Kurt when he opened his presents to him and playing up his joy at the tie Susie picked out for him with Carole's help. When he opened the card Burt and Carole had sent in their box, his eyebrows furrowed in confusion.

"A travel itinerary around Florence? I don't understand; I've been living here for months."

"Maybe Kurt should open his present from us next," Burt suggested casually. All three boys looked at him in confusion.

"O-kay," Kurt said slowly, picking up a similar-sized card from his own pile with a suspicious side glance at Carole who almost looked like she was about to wet herself. Burt really needed to talk to her about her poker face.

Kurt ripped the card open with deft fingers, eyes going wide when he unfolded the paper inside the card.

"Dude, what is it?" Finn asked, leaning over his shoulder and then dropping the present he was still fiddling with in his lap. "Holy crap."

"What is it?" Blaine asked, clearly trying to be polite about being the last to know. Except for Susie, of course, who had gotten bored and was playing with her fake bow and arrow a few feet away on the floor.

"Dad-" Kurt choked out, looking at him with tears streaming down his face for the second time that night.

"Merry Christmas, buddy."

Kurt launched himself into Burt's arms, crying into his shoulder as Carole explained things to a disbelieving Blaine. Turned out flying into Florence was easier and more cheaply done from New York but that it necessitated a six hour layover in Paris first. Burt figured Kurt hadn't made any plans for Spring Break yet anyway.

He loved being a dad.

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><p><strong>I am so ridiculously impatient for the new PixarDisney movie Brave to come out already. I haven't even seen it yet and I'm sort of in love with it, so I figured I'd make Susie love it too.**

**Thoughts?**


	4. Christmas 2015

**To those of you who care, Happy Christmas! To those of you who don't, I present Susie Lee Hummel.**

**Walking the fine line between voice and grammar in this chapter really drove me a bit crazy, but I hope you like it.**

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><p>When Susie first woke up she couldn't remember why she was so excited. And then it hit her.<p>

It was Christmas!

With a quiet squeal, Susie threw her covers off and jumped out of bed, using the railing Dad had installed to make sure she didn't fall out of bed in the night to launch herself across the room. She could get almost halfway across the room doing that now, which was really impressive.

She landed with a satisfying thud and ran across the hall to Finn's room, almost running headlong into his door but she didn't cause he never shut it properly. Not like Kurt and Blaine did when they were home.

"Finny!"

There was a lump on Finn's bed where Finn was s'posed to be, so Susie took a flying leap at it and landed in its middle. It made a pained "Ugh!" sound, so Susie knew it was her brother and not some monster that had eaten him cause he let his arms hang over the sides of the bed when he slept. Everybody knew the monsters would get you if you let any part of you hang over the edge of the bed. Maybe they just left Finn alone cause he was so big.

"Finny, it's Christmas!"

The lump groaned at her and Susie moved off it so she could better jump on the bed.

"Finny!"

"I heard you. Go 'way."

"But it's Christmas!"

"Okay, okay, it's Christmas. Stop jumping on my bed."

Susie giggled and jumped a few more times before using the bed like the diving board at the pool that the bigger kids got to jump off of. She landed on her feet like a cat and ran out of the room, leaving the door gaping wide behind her when she left.

Next Susie decided to play the creeping game so her next victims wouldn't know she was coming. Very carefully, she tip-toed down the hall like she saw the Grinch do in that movie and then flattened herself to the wall to look both ways like a spy. No one had seen her.

Susie threw open the door to Kurt and Blaine's room, but this time instead of an unrecognizable lump on the bed, Susie could see Blaine on top of Kurt and Kurt's hands in Blaine's hair and they were kissing.

"Kurt, Blaine, stop kissing. It's Christmas!"

She scared Blaine so hard he practically jumped off Kurt and Kurt screamed and threw a pillow at her in revenge. Susie giggled.

"Susie! Knock before you enter a room!"

"But it's Christmas! There are presents!"

Kurt growled at her, only stopping when Blaine put a hand on his arm. They both had red faces.

"We'll be down in a minute, SuLee. Why don't you go wake up Mom and Dad?" Blaine was always nice to her.

Kurt growled again. Susie took another look at Kurt's angry face and backed out of the doorway.

"Okay. But you have to open my present first."

"Deal," Blaine smiled, though it wasn't as big as usual. Susie saw him bury his head in Kurt's shoulder as she closed the door behind her.

That was weird. Kurt didn't usually snap at her like that when she hadn't done something wrong. Not even when she walked in on him kissing Blaine in the kitchen or the living room or something.

Maybe it was cause they weren't wearing shirts.

Susie gasped, stopping dead at the top of the stairs. Maybe they weren't just kissing, maybe they were having _sex_.

Susie knew about sex. Maggie Jay at daycare knew everything there was to know about sex cause she'd walked in on her mom and dad doing it once and they'd talked about it with her and then she'd told everybody in secret what it meant.

If Susie really had just walked in on Kurt and Blaine having sex then maybe it was okay that Kurt had yelled at her cause sex was supposed to be for adults, not kids. Plus it sounded gross.

But if Kurt and Blaine were having sex then Susie was confused, cause Maggie Jay said that her parents said that sex was something boy and girl adults did when they loved each other a special way. Kurt and Blaine were both boys.

Susie sat down on the top step and put her chin on her fist like that thinking guy she saw a picture of once.

Kurt and Blaine were both boys, but Susie knew they loved each other the way Mom and Dad loved each other and the way Finn said he loved that Amanda girl who gave Susie the ladybug backpack last summer but who she hadn't met except over the computer. And they'd all loved each other for _forever_. Like since before Susie was even _born_. Maybe if Kurt and Blaine could love each other like that for so long then that meant they could have sex too. Which meant that Susie knew something about sex that Maggie Jay didn't know.

Susie liked being smarter than Maggie Jay.

Grinning manically, Susie skipped down the stairs and knocked her special knock on Mom and Dad's door. She didn't want to walk in on them having sex too.

Dad growled his sleepy growl and Susie took that to mean it was safe. She threw open the door and galloped over to Mom and Dad's bed, leaping on the bench at the foot of it and throwing herself onto the comforter with a thwap. It kinda hurt but it was lots of fun.

"IT'S CHRISTMAS!" she yelled.

"All right, all right, squirt. We get it," Dad said. Susie giggled. Dad was fun when he was all sleepy-growly in the morning.

Mom stretched and moaned a yawn, smiling at Susie when she was done and swinging her feet off the side of the bed. Susie cheered.

"I suppose seven is an improvement on last year," Mom said. Dad just groaned and tried to bury his head under his pillow. Mom picked up the remote and poked him with it.

Susie giggled.

"Come on, little girl," Mom said. "Let's go heat up that leftover hot chocolate from last night. Do you think it's still any good?"

Susie cheered again. Mom always made too much hot chocolate on Christmas Eve, so Christmas morning was the earliest Susie got to drink hot chocolate all year. Every other day she had to have milk or juice with breakfast.

Leaping off the bed – which was always a little scary with Mom and Dad's bed – Susie galloped out into the kitchen where Finn was already looting the fridge for food. Susie giggled when she saw he had two different-looking socks on his feet.

"Mom said hot cocoa!"

Finn grunted and took the ceramic pot thing that had last night's cocoa in it out of the fridge, putting it back into its heater thing and turning the knob to make it hot.

Susie danced in place watching it while Mom came in and started making something they could eat while they opened presents. Susie gasped.

Presents!

Running past Mom, Susie darted into the living room only to see Kurt and Blaine settling in on the couch, small presents already in hand. Kurt avoided her eyes as soon as he noticed her and Susie felt bad, but mostly she felt annoyed.

"You can't start until everybody's here!"

"These are our presents to each other, SuLee. We just wanted to make sure we each got them. We won't open them yet, I promise."

"You're s'posed to open _mine_ first," Susie pouted. "You promised."

"We will," Blaine said. "Tell you what, how about you help me divide out the presents so that way when everybody else gets in here we can open them as soon as possible. We'll even make sure to put your presents to everyone on top of their piles so they can all open yours first."

Susie thought about it. She still couldn't really read very well, but Blaine always got really happy whenever she tried to read with him, even if it was one of those big boring doctor books Finn always made fun of that had the pictures of weird stripy people in them. And she did really want to open her presents.

"Mm, okay. But my pile is closest to the tree."

"Great!" Blaine gave the present in his hand back to Kurt and kneeled down on the floor with her, asking her for help reading all the tags. Almost all of them said Susie. She liked that.

When everybody finally came in to open presents and Susie drank her cocoa too fast and then got almost everything she wanted including fuzzy socks she didn't ask Santa for but really secretly liked, Susie found herself kind of sad.

Christmas was supposed to be a happy time when people got the stuff they wanted, but Kurt and Blaine and Finn were still going back to college instead of staying home with her and neither of the small presents Kurt and Blaine opened from each other had a ring inside. Susie saw people in love do that in a movie Mom watched with her a few days ago and thought it was super romantic. Weren't people in love s'posed to give each other sparkly rings and get married? Mom and Dad were married and two nights ago Susie overheard Finn talking to Dad about maybe marrying that Amanda girl at some point. Why didn't Kurt and Blaine want to give each other sparkly rings and get married?

Susie watched everybody talking animatedly. Finn was making fun of Blaine again for willingly staying in school for longer than he had to because being a composter wasn't enough, he had to go and be a doctor too. Susie didn't really understand what they were talking about, she longed for the day she'd finally be able to go to school all day like the big kids. Plus, if Blaine became a doctor, maybe she could go to him instead of the weird old dude Mom took her to who made her get shots with the big scary needle. Blaine was nice; he wouldn't make her get stuck with a needle.

But even if Blaine did become her doctor, he probably still wouldn't marry Kurt and they probably still wouldn't move home to be with her for always like Mom and Dad were.

Suddenly Susie realized what she did wrong. She had talked to mom about it! Everybody knew you weren't supposed to tell other people what your wishes were cause otherwise they wouldn't come true. Susie hadn't realized that that was her deepest most big wish when she talked about it to Mom, so she hoped that maybe she could start over and wish it again. In fact, she was gonna wish it every time she made a wish from now on. She'd wish it on a star and on her eyelashes and she'd even use her most special birthday wish to wish it. Maybe then it would come true.

Susie got up and plopped herself down in front of the big window in the living room. She was gonna wish on the first star she saw starting tonight. And she was determined not to move until she did.

* * *

><p><strong>I'm afraid I might have written Susie a bit old in this (she's supposed to be less than a month shy of four), but I already had it half-written when I paused to do the math and it was too cute to change. If she does seem a bit too old, let's just call her precocious and leave it at that. Or maybe you can pretend I skipped a year. Whatever.<strong>

**Let me know what you think! **


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